Sleep Buddies
by Brennanite47
Summary: Brennan hasn't slept in a week. Will it be her exhaustion or the pure worry that makes Booth rush to her with Thai food. B&B one-shot. K just in case.


_**Just a quick one-shot that's been sitting here on my hard drive for a long time now and I figured I'd post it. Happy reading!!**_

_**Sleep Buddies**_

Brennan couldn't sleep. She'd been tossing and turning on her couch in her office, only planning on catching up on the few hours she'd lost by coming in so early. She didn't sleep well at all anymore. She didn't understand what it was, and that only infuriated her. She even thought about asking Sweets about what her problem might be. Keywords being 'thought about'.

She sat up, not getting anywhere fast in her poor attempt at rest. Brennan had finished with the body that had gotten her out of bed, sent the body and the report out, and then came and collapsed on her couch. Laying there for the last twenty minutes, trying to clear her head of whatever was preventing her from sleeping, obviously didn't help.

Brennan wandered down to Autopsy where Cam had been filing paperwork to wherever it needed to go. Hearing someone enter her office, Cam turned around to see a bleary-eyed Brennan barely standing up straight with her hands in the pockets of her lab coat.

"Are you alright, Dr. Brennan?" Cam asked. The forensic anthropologist never looked so run-down to her eyes before.

"Do you have anything for me to…do?" Brennan asked warily. She usually was a very busy person and could be left to her own devices at any other time. This, however, seemed to be a rare exception.

"Not really. I'm just sitting in here writing out my reports and sending them off. Are you sure you're okay? You look tired." Cam tried again.

"Yes, Cam, I'm fine. I just haven't been sleeping all that well lately." Brennan rubbed her eyes, trying to rid herself of the permanent dark circles that had etched themselves under her eyes.

"If there's nothing else to be done, why don't you take the rest of the day off? You look like you need the sleep and if anything pops up, we've got Zack here to get us through it." She placed a reassuring hand on the other woman's shoulder. Cam knew Brennan's type. She'd work herself into oblivion and finally burn-out from exhaustion. The normal appreciation that Cam felt was lost this time when she saw that look in Brennan's eyes. It was somewhere between 'help me' and 'ready to cry' depletion.

Whereas the suggestion would be denied under any other circumstances, Brennan took it without a moment's hesitation. "Thanks, Cam."

"No problem, Brennan." Cam watched the exhausted anthropologist dragged herself out the door and back to her office where she would trade her lab coat for her street jacket, turn off the lights and lock her office door, and drive tiredly home. She really did feel bad, thinking that Brennan's unfortunate predicament was somehow her fault.

Not five minutes after Brennan had left for home, the sound of the doors whisking open again resounded throughout the lab. Special Agent Seeley Booth was obviously in the Jeffersonian for one purpose: to collect his partner for lunch at the diner. Looking at her office and seeing it was dark, he made his way over to his ex-girlfriend's office in search for Bones.

"Seeley." Cam greeted him.

"Camille, don't call me Seeley, where's Bones?" he asked.

"She looked like she was ready to pass out on the platform, so I sent her home and told her to get some sleep. Please tell me you got a body that turned up somewhere," she pleaded for a way out of the never-ending piles of paperwork that looked like they were going to string out the rest of the day.

"Nope, no dead people for now. What's wrong with Bones?" he pressed. It was impossible for Brennan to just drop work in the middle of the day and go home.

"I don't know. She said that she hadn't been sleeping well for awhile and I believed her. She doesn't look good at all, Booth." Cam continued while filing through papers. It wasn't that she didn't like Dr. Brennan, she did, but she felt an odd sense to protect her colleague's privacy and not tell him about it.

"'K, thanks Cam." he said as he strode out. No doubt Booth would go pick up Thai food, go to her apartment, and tear at the walls Brennan had constructed around herself so many years ago until she told him what was eating at her. It was just the way that Booth thought about things.

_Oh, well. It's none of my business what he does to get under her skin._ Cam thought as she went back to the miserable task at hand.

* * *

"Ugh…" Brennan groaned from underneath her pillow as she heard the knocking at her front door. How did anyone know she was here? She'd unplugged and turned off her phones and had no lights on. By instruction she'd noted to Angela NOT to call her or come over to check on her. She merely needed a few hours of sleep. Apparently the universe wanted her to suffer a little bit more. (Not that she'd been sleeping, anyway.)

Reluctantly, she rolled out of bed and trudged to the door, unaware of the fact that all she wore was a pair of underwear with stars all over them and a pink, tight-fitting t-shirt with a sleeping duck on a cloud that said "We all can't be morning people". Brennan opened the door to see Booth's smiling face, his arms loaded down with take-out.

"What are you doing here, Booth?" she ran her fingers through her hair.

"Well, hello to you too, Bones. Cam was right, you do look like hell." Booth said as he walked past her, inviting himself into her apartment.

Brennan grumbled incoherently to her entryway as she closed the door. She thought it was abnormal that he could make himself so at home after just walking in. Booth knew her apartment like the back of his hand. By the time she made it to her kitchen, he was already pulling out plates and silverware.

"Booth, I don't mean to be rude, but I'm not that hungry and I'm really tired." she said while rubbing her temples. The headache that had been haunting her for the last few days had returned again to play it's painful games with her brain.

He noticed the hitch in her breath as the painful wave hit her. Booth, being the proper gentleman, helped her up onto one of the barstools by the counter. "You want some Advil Bones?"

"No, Booth, thank you, I just need to get some sleep." she propped her head up on her arms.

"Why haven't you been sleeping, Bones?" Booth asked.

Brennan had been thinking about that exact question all of those nights when she wasn't sleeping. She couldn't even explain the reason to herself, let alone Booth. All she knew was that she'd been awake at night as cold as ice and thinking of him. After that, it seemed, there was no way possible of getting back to sleep. They weren't appropriate thoughts either. She would be asleep for a few hours, dreaming of Booth holding her in his arms while she slept, only to wake up and be lonely and cold. It was anomalous and unimportant.

"It doesn't matter." she said simply after a long while.

"Yeah, it does matter if your barely able to stand at noon because your tired." he retorted.

She finally blew, whether it was from lack of sleep or Booth's prying is unclear. "What do you want to know, Booth? Do you want to know that I can't sleep at night because I'm cold in my own bed? That I'm lonely? If that's what you wanted to hear, it's true, then there it is for you." Brennan folded her arms on the table and put her head down, hardly able to keep the moisture that threatened to spill from her eyes in check.

Booth's eyes followed his distressed partner's face down until all that was visible was her hair. His hand hovered, contemplating on what would comfort her the most. In the end, he stroked her hair. Booth started so gently, Brennan hardly felt it, like he was touching the wings of a butterfly. As time went on, he tucked it in behind her ears and lightly rubbed her shoulders soothingly.

She finally picked her head up after making sure she wasn't about to break down in front of him. That was the last thing that Brennan wanted to do. She looked up, his face calm and smiling slightly. Brennan's attempt at professionalism failed as she wrapped her arms around him, seeking comfort in the warmth she felt there.

If there was one thing they both knew in that moment, this was no guy hug. Brennan's head fit perfectly in the crook of Booth's neck as he rubbed her back in slow circles. Booth ended up taking a liberty and breathed in her scent. Whatever soap she used smelled of a fresh fallen rain.

"_It's the perfect moment, Seeley. It's now or never." _his mind and his heart both shouted at him. The only problem was how to say it so it wouldn't scare her. _"Come on, Seel, just do it. Quick like a band-aid. You'll be thrilled that you did it, even if she doesn't return the favor and crushes you." _It didn't sound that appealing when it was put that way.

"Bones?" he whispered.

"Yes?"

"I love you."

Silence. If there were crickets, they would've shut up in such an awkward moment. Brennan pulled back to look him dead in the eye. Those brown orbs betrayed nothing but a beautiful admiration that she'd never seen in her life.

"D…you mean like friends or…" she couldn't articulate what was happening inside her.

"I mean more than friends, Bones. I think somewhere you know that."

Brennan didn't think that there were words in any language in history that described what she felt with Booth. Instead, she decided to show him. With a smile in her light blue eyes, Brennan pulled him down to her by the jacket and kissed him. She easily considered it the most passionate kiss of her life.

When she released him from the death grip she had on him, they were both panting like dogs, noses touching. "I love you, too, Booth. I've never loved anyone like this before…it scares me." she confided quietly.

"There's nothing you have to be afraid of, Bones. I will never hurt you or knowingly make you uncomfortable." he held her face in both hands, still being careful not to bring on an unwanted touch.

She smiled weakly. "I know, Booth, I'm just so tired I can barely see straight anymore."

Booth returned the smile, then broke into a grin. "Hey, I've got an idea."

He guided Brennan over to the couch and sprawled out over it, inviting her to join him. "Come here," he said.

Brennan chuckled and let Booth hold her in his arms. She couldn't believe that she was asleep before he even tossed the blanket on the back of the couch over her. It was the first time in a long time that she slept so soundly or felt so warm.

When Brennan would wake later that night, she knew that it was no longer a dream that she only allowed in her wildest fantasies. It was a reality, and she promised herself to never let go.

**_Good? Bad? Indifferent? Let me know and I love you all for reading, but I'll LURV you if you review._**


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